> the "joke" implied intimacy in said meal. No, the joke is literally that it tastes better because I’m not worrying about the fine details. You are your own w

> the "joke" implied intimacy in said meal. No, the joke is literally that it tastes better because I’m not worrying about the fine details. You are your own worst critic and all that. When somebody else makes it, you can enjoy the food for what it is and don’t find yourself focusing on the flaws. And I don’t think I’m missing the forest for the trees here. The whole argument hinges on, “things are innately better if I put more work into it”, which I don’t believe is true. In the specific example of ready made meals vs a meal being cooked personally, the quality of the food has no bearing on how much work it took you to prepare it. And this is trivially provable. Wealthy people that have personal chefs certainly don’t have a lower quality of life even though they don’t personally prepare every meal. Of course McDonald’s everyday will lower your quality of life, but going to fine restaurants won’t. All of these have vastly different levels of effort involved, but the effort involved doesn’t correlate to quality of life.